


You, Me, and the BQE

by daughterofalderaan



Category: Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:40:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28981248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daughterofalderaan/pseuds/daughterofalderaan
Summary: The day after she gets out, Debbie is newly adjusting to having her agency thrust back into her hands. Lou takes her for a ride.
Relationships: Lou Miller & Debbie Ocean
Kudos: 7





	You, Me, and the BQE

Night two. 

Debbie seamlessly transitioned out of wolfing down her food and into tapping her fingers on the table. She dropped down one finger at a time until they were all touching the smooth surface, and then repeated.

Lou watched. “Ok?” she asked. 

A monosyllabic question. The more specific questions were too heavy for tonight.

Debbie shrugged. “Adjusting.”

Lou accepted the answer and kept chewing. She didn’t press, or ask for intel on the job. She was waiting for Debbie to tell her. 

Debbie looked around the space. “Everything feels kind of fake,” she divulged. 

“Life’s supposed to feel real?” Lou joked. 

“Let’s take a rain check on Philosophy 1000.”

She didn’t feel like getting into it all. Physically, she was out of the stockade but mentally it was disorienting, getting used to the fact that she wasn’t legally bound to being enclosed by off-white concrete. 

Debbie could step outside, right now, if she so desired. She knew that. Some part of her couldn’t process it. 

Maybe it was messier in her head than she’d let on to anyone. Maybe she’d tell Lou about it all in a week or a year.

Lou yawned and continued eating the midnight dinner she’d copped off Debbie.

Yesterday, Debbie craved languid luxury. Tonight, she was thrumming. Threatening her ex with a toothbrush should’ve been the high that rode her into a new day but she still wasn’t sated. Maybe she wouldn’t get any sleep tonight.

Debbie snatched some food from Lou’s side of the table and bit into it. “Do you still ride?” she asked.

Lou eyed the orange chicken wedged between the chopsticks in Debbie’s fingers. “You still steal?” 

“No,” deadpanned Debbie.

“No,” said Lou, matching her tone.

Light smiles.

They were quiet as Debbie finished her meal, and then—Lou’s chair made an assaulting noise as she abruptly stood up. “Let’s go, then.”

“Huh?”

Lou mimed gripping the handles of her bike. 

“What if I wanted to stay in and watch Eyewitness News?”

“C’mon, blue jay,” said Lou, already walking away to grab her gear.

Outside, Lou thrust a spare helmet at Debbie and mounted her motorcycle.

“Where to, then?” asked Lou.

“You pick.”

Lou bounced her head side-to-side in response.

“Stick to Brooklyn,” said Debbie.

Lou crunched a leaf under her chunky suede heel. “What direction?”

Debbie twisted her hand towards a vaguely northeast direction and climbed on. Lou revved the engine for the sake of theatrics.

It started off bumpy; the road outside of Lou’s loft was made of cobblestone. The transition to tar was what did it. Even though it wasn’t Debbie at the helm, a sense of control reigned within her, finally.

There was still a stupid amount of street traffic, considering the hour. They hit a light outside of a corner bodega where she’d once seen the owner sell his cat to a customer. 

Lou made a left turn and they were sailing up on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. 

Lower Manhattan swarmed by. Nobody had to know that Debbie chose to look at it dead-on. She turned her head to observe it, tracing over its outline with her eyes, in quick strokes. 

The scene was thrown off by a distasteful skyscraper that had erupted in the middle of the skyline. The world was as she knew it to be laid out in her head, but the visuals had a disorienting taste if she thought for too long about it. She tightened her grip on Lou’s waist.

The tops of buildings engulfed them on the left and the right. Lou kept switching lanes to amuse Debbie, and it worked.

They whizzed by a brick edifice with a ghost sign for a furniture store. A group of people squeezed onto an apartment balcony were blasting a sickly sweet pop song with a killer base. The entire area bowed down to a radio tower high above. A car made a horrifically dangerous swerve and Lou ended up in a side-by-side screaming match with the driver. 

Thank god. 

To think that she nearly had the specific misfortune of having to serve parole in _New Jersey_. 

They hit a long straight stretch of the highway and Lou sped things up. Debbie’s hair was flowing straight behind her and the air was tackling her exposed skin. The sensations were right, they were correct.

Lou took the last exit before the bridge. 

On the ride back, they opted for roads neglected from the touch of ample street lighting. They buzzed past, disturbing the silence.

Before they had even come to a complete stop when pulling up outside of the loft, Debbie lifted her knee over the seat, preparing to hop off. She found that speeding through the streets was more secure of a sensation than being back on dry land. 

After taking her helmet off, she combed a nail down her part to set things straight with her hair. “Thanks,” she said.

Lou gave her one of her nods. 

Tomorrow. She’d tell Lou about the little plan she’d hatched up over five years, etc, etc, tomorrow. 

**Author's Note:**

> I had a doc sitting there from the month this movie came out and all of the sudden JUST decided to disregard that and start from scratch on what had been lingering in the back of my mind for 2.5 years, OPE
> 
> Ocean-ing over on [tumblr](https://freetobegrace.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Feel free to drop a comment if you enjoyed✨


End file.
